Analysis of the module pass rates across an academic school showed that a small percentage of taught modules were disproportionately contributing to student failure. High fail rate modules defined as outliers were not associated with one programme group of students or module team. Although there was a desire to see higher student retention the problem seemed too extensive multifactorial and complex to solve. One approach to facilitate rapid improvement with limited resource and time was to focus on the lower pass rate modules that had large student populations. This presentation reports on an initiative and implementation plan for a strategy which realised rapid and significant improvements. In an effort to develop a culture of excellent learning environments and teaching standards the leadership challenges are dealt with openly discussing the difficult issues encountered.
